The Visitor

by Ernst Toller

The walls shriek with eyes
of mangled pigeons, the weasel’s glittering teeth,
the aimless thrashing of the terrified.
The heart clings to the prisoner’s hand,
forever it beats, song of the deserted.
Snipers circle about him.
From the crush of frozen cells he emerges,
absorbed in the spirals of a choked life,
looks to the interior, drinks from God’s spring—